A gun with a known historical association is a tangible
connection to our collective past, and such connections are rare
and precious things.

Precious implies value, value implies price, and the question
always arises for a collector: exactly how much is history worth?
In 1993, we saw the S&W New Model Number Three reportedly used
by Bob Ford to kill Jesse James knocked down for $163,000 on a
British auction block. Late in 1994, Theodore Roosevelt's famous
Holland and Holland double rifle brought a cool half-million at
Butterfield & Butterfield (and that was before the 10% buyers
premium)! Obviously, the buyers of these pieces were paying for
something more than condition.

What exactly were they buying? How does one assess the history
of a gun? An old gun accompanied by a pile of newspaper clippings,
documents, and photographs can make a very impressive package.
However, more than one collector has paid a handsome premium for
such a package, only to discover, sometimes years later, that there
is nothing that really ties that particular gun to the individual
or event so heavily documented in the paperwork.

Collectors have more or less agreed on a couple quantifiable
systems for evaluating the condition of a gun. I'd like to suggest
that a similar system for evaluating the historical claims of a gun
might be a useful mental tool for the collector or enthusiast.

PRICES OF HISTORY

Here's how I approach it:

The value of a historically attributed gun is the sum of two
figures:

The gun's intrinsic value

plus the gun's historic attribution
value.

The intrinsic value is the gun's "Blue Book" value - its worth
as a gun with no story attached, as determined by make, model and
condition. In this respect, it is similar to valuing collectible
coins.

The historic attribution value is the amount added to the gun's
value for the story attached to the gun - its historical ownership
or usage. This is usually a far more subjective figure, and is more
similar to valuing collectible historical documents.

This historic attribution value is itself the product of two
factors:

The historical significance of the individual
or event, and

The credibility of the evidence supporting the
gun's claim.

Of these two factors, historical significance is the most
subjective, and will vary from collector to collector, depending on
that individual's interest in the history involved.

A gun's historical claim usually will involve either ownership
by a particular individual or usage in a famous or infamous
incident. Those with the highest value will have both.

What you are pricing is the fame or notoriety of the individual
and/or event in question. Presidents, generals, famous lawmen and
outlaws seem to rank highest. Ownership by the most famous of these
can easily result in a six figure gun, especially if combined with
a particular notorious event.

Ownership by lesser political or military figures, obscure
lawmen, or less notorious criminals will still significantly
enhance a gun's value.

Even attribution to an essentially unknown individual can add
value, usually proportionate to the distance in time and the amount
of information that can be dug up on the person in question.

Popular perception can certainly heavily impact the value
assigned to historical significance, sometimes in ways that would
make an academic historian blanch. Perhaps a way to conceptualize
the value of the historical significance is to look at the
cumulative media & literature devoted to the individual or
event. In ascending value:

Small-town newspaper clippings, family records, etc.

Reference to individual or event can be found in library.

There has been a book published on the individual.

Commonly recognized name.

Portrayed on Mount Rushmore or by Kevin Costner in recent
movie.

You get the drift?

A gun traced back to someone who lived, got married, had a job
and died may have a little historical value added, whereas a gun
proved to have been used by a legendary character in a notorious
Old West shootout may set record prices.

CREDIBILITY

The credibility of a gun's historic claim lends
itself to a more objective analysis - an analysis that a
prospective buyer ignores at his own financial peril.

I tend to assign a historically attributed gun's credibility a
grammar school grade - A,B,C,D, or F. Each grade represents a level
of authenticity.

A= Certain.
B= Probable.
C= Plausible.
D= Questionable
F= Impossible.

As with school grades, each level can have a plus or minus
rating.

Once a dollar value has been established for the gun's
historical significance, a factor can be applied
based on the gun's credibility rating. The
following scale might serve as a guideline:

A - 100% historical attribution value.
B - 75% to 50% historical attribution value.
C - 50% to 25% historical attribution value.
D -25% to 5% historical attribution value, with the caveat that a
"D" gun should never go for more than double the gun's intrinsic
value. In most cases, a "D" type story gun will bring only a small
premium or perhaps make the gun easier to sell at its intrinsic
value.
F - 0% historical attribution value. In fact, the intrinsic value
of the gun may be lessened if a disproved historical name has been
permanently marked on the gun.

EVALUATING CREDIBILITY

Let's take a closer look at evaluating the credibility of a
gun's historical claim:

A. To get an A rating, a gun must inspire a
high degree of Certainty that it is what it purports to be. It must
be accompanied by documentation which satisfies the following
criteria:

Timeliness: The documentation must be from the
period of claimed historical association - not from three
generations later, and not from 10 years after the fact.

Certain identification: It must specifically
identify the individual gun or group of guns in question. Most
often this is done by serial number. Occasionally it may be
possible to do by photograph or description of specific unique
physical characteristics, but extreme caution should be used in
relying on such an approach. In some cases, provenance may provide
reasonably certain identification, but also should be approached
with open-minded skepticism.

Credibility of source: The identification must
come from a credible source, one unlikely to intentionally or
accidentally misidentify the gun. Factory records or court records
are preferable. Newspaper accounts, and signed documents
(preferably notarized) from credible individuals may meet this
requirement.

A rated guns are very, very rare. Sort of like true "mint"
guns.

B. B-rated guns have a high degree of
probability that they are as represented. They typically are guns
with strong historical documentation, but fall a little short of
the stringent criteria required for an A rating.

The most common difference between A and B guns lies in the area
of timeliness of the documentation. Often a B gun will have certain
identification from a credible source, but the identification will
come at some time later than the period of historical use. Often it
is the case that the documentation will come from a descendant of
the original user, and the gun will have been passed down within
the family.

A gun that is rated "B" may also fall short of "A" status by
lack of certainty of identification. This is usually a case where a
stack of documentation accompanies the gun, and appears to have
been with it forever. However, on close examination there is a
break in the claim identifying the gun that is with the
documentation as the gun referred to in the documents. This is
especially common in guns lacking serial numbers or other unique
identifying characteristics.

It's my contention that most of the guns which are accepted in
the collecting community as "authentic" to a particular ownership
are B guns. And it is here that we must address a term that is
bandied about quite a bit - provenance.

Provenance seems to be something of a term of art. You find it
in $40 a pop four-color high-end auction house catalogs, and
esoteric dealer ads. It seems to mean the pedigree of a guns past
ownership, and tends to be a document that states something like
"This gun was originally owned by Mr. W who gave it to Mrs. X who
sold it to Mr. Y who sold it to me, Mr. Z." A gun with superior
provenance with separate documents confirming each past owner, each
meeting all the A criteria above can easily become an "A" gun.

However, often a study of a gun's provenance will reveal gaps in
the documentation. For example, in the hypothetical provenance in
the paragraph above, "W to X to Y to Z," the credibility of the gun
is tied inextricably not only to the credibility of Mr. Z, but also
the credibility and accuracy of W, X & Y.

Remember that several factors other than malfeasance can figure
into the misrepresentation of a gun. Guns may be inadvertently
switched. There may be errors in the recording of serial numbers or
other identifying characteristics. Plus, there is always room for
error in intergenerational tale telling. Granddad tells
seven-year-old Sonny how Jesse James personally gave him the old
owl's head revolver in the night stand. All the adults in the room
recognize it for one of Granddad's beloved tall tales. Sixty years
later, Sonny is certainly willing to draft an affidavit as to what
his granddad told him.

When supporting documentation comes up short in the areas of
timeliness or certainty of documentation, it is especially
important to look at the credibility of the source of the
information. In spite of the Grandpa & Sonny illustration
above, I tend to give most credence to notarized statements from
the descendants of the original owner.

I also believe that the better dealers of antique and historic
arms realize that their continued success in the business rests
only on their long term reputation for veracity and fairness. A
written statement from such an individual outlining the purported
history of a piece can go a long way to establishing B status in my
mind. The contents of any such statement must be carefully
evaluated, and a conscientious dealer will make clear exactly what
is known about the gun and the source of that information.

There was a recent Country & Western song, "That's my story
and I'm stickin' to it." A gun can acquire something like B status
in the same manner. If a particular gun establishes a particular
claim and sticks to it long enough, it comes to be accepted as
factual. This usually occurs through the magic of publication. If a
gun is pictured in a book or magazine and represented to be a
particular historic artifact, it comes to be accepted as such. The
effect is magnified by repeated publication or passage of years,
much in the way that it is said that old buildings and old whores
establish respectability.

I must confess, I have a hard time fighting my knee-jerk
reaction to accept whatever appears in print. However, I try to
take an extra hard look at a "B by publication" gun to see if it
might fall into the D or F categories.

Some gun cranks are fond of saying that a historically
attributed gun must be provable in a court of law. This is
essentially a good perspective, but any lawyer will tell you there
are varying standards of proof. An A gun is provable beyond a
reasonable doubt, while a B gun holds its claim by a preponderance
of the evidence.

To put it another way, a B gun is an A gun, but less so.

C. C rated guns are plausible. They feel right,
but you can't prove or disprove them. A good C gun will often be
supported by some sort of documentation. There are several general
types of guns that I tend to give C status:

Dealer-lettered guns - as discussed above, a thorough and well
drafted report from a reputable dealer or researcher will put a gun
squarely in the B or C category, depending on what the statement
reveals. To me, a blanket statement that "This gun belonged to so
and so" raises serious questions as to the credibility. The
document must state the writer's reasons for accepting the gun's
history. The best ones are "Joe Friday" letters - "Just the facts,
ma'am."

C Guns Continued:
Stack'o clippings guns - You've seen them. A gun displayed under
glass with yellowed newspaper clippings, old letters, service
records, tintypes, a rusty badge, etc. They are very impressive and
nearly always fascinating. The problem is, there is nothing in
writing directly connecting the specific gun in question to the
individual or deed so lavishly reported.

Self-testifying guns - That is, a gun whose historic claim in
based solely on a marking on the gun itself. Usually these are guns
with an individual's name etched, engraved, or otherwise marked on
them. Probably many are authentic, but the fact remains that,
lacking other information, they cannot be proven. CAVEAT - The
credibility of a self-testifying gun is inversely proportional to
the fame of the individual in question. I.e., on a Civil War era
revolver, I would give 98% credibility to a gun inscribed "To Cpl.
Joe Blow from his mother" and 2% credibility to one inscribed "To
Capt. G. A. Custer from Gen. U. S. Grant."

D. A "D" gun is a C gun that has a faint odor
to it. Something about them makes their claim questionable, but not
impossible.

I tend to classify self-testifying guns with famous names
inscribed on them "D" status. Also, inscribed guns where the method
of inscription doesn't look quite right.

Most story guns which lack documentation must be considered D
guns. Especially if the seller is not willing to put the story in
the form of a notarized statement.

Often D guns require a sizable leap of faith, such as, "Well,
sure, most Wells Fargo guns were marked with a line stamp, but this
one was probably done at a little branch office out west where they
didn't have a regular stamp and couldn't spell too good …" or
"Yeah, I know he said, 'Never trust a woman or an automatic
pistol,' but this is probably the 1911 that jammed on him and make
him say that." All of which brings us to …

F. For Fake. For Fraud. For Fail. For
Impossible, no way Jose.

These are guns that are just flat wrong on their face. Most
common and obvious examples are the many six-guns attributed to
various Old West desperadoes that by serial number were made years
after their death.

TYPE OF HISTORY
CLAIMED

While we've been discussing these ratings mostly in terms of
association with a particular historical individual, they can also
be applied to the credibility of other historical claims, such as
military, police, or agency usage; period of engraving; or
attribution of engraving to a particular artist.
Please note that when using this letter rating system, you must
specify exactly what historical claim is being rated. In
application a single gun may have different ratings for different
claims.

Consider a Colt Single Action Army Cavalry model in the
so-called "7th Calvary" serial number range. Assuming the gun
itself and all its markings are correct, it might be considered an
"A" as a US military gun, a "B" as an Indian War gun, a "C" as a
Little Big Horn gun, and a "D" or "F" as Gen. Custer's personal
sidearm.

EXAMPLES

Let's see how this system would apply to some examples. To avoid
threatening letters, we'll consider guns which are either from my
personal collection, or which have been widely reported in the gun
press, or where I've changed the names to protect the guilty.

We'll start out by considering four different guns associated
with Theodore Roosevelt:

>[?The first is a beautiful little engraved S&W lemon
squeezer with pearl grips, the engraving featuring a representation
of a mustachioed pistol wielding horseman bearing a passing
resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider. It is
accompanied by a letter from a leading West Coast gun dealer and
auctioneer, reporting that the gun came from a prominent South
American family, and that family legend was that it had been given
to their ancestor by Roosevelt during his South American
explorations. The S & W factory "letters" it as a special order
gun shipped to a major distributor, further details not known.

The little gun has a good "feel" to it. It is known that TR took
a S&W on his South American expedition. Roosevelt featured a
hand drawn illustration of a lemon squeezer in one of his books.
The revolver strives mightily for a "B" rating. However, it must
remain a "C" gun, especially considering Roosevelt's prominence. It
is a "story gun", with some supporting documentation from a
credible source and with supporting circumstances, but sadly
lacking in timeliness of its documentation. "C."

The next gun is a cased S&W New Model #3, acquired from a
prominent East Coast gun auctioneer. It is accompanied by a letter
signed by a descendent of Henry Cabot Lodge, stating that the gun
had been presented to Lodge by his good friend Theodore Roosevelt.
The factory letter states that there is no shipping information
available on the gun. This could be consistent with a gun pulled
from production for special presentation to a prominent individual,
but also could have several other equally possible
explanations.

Again, it sounds like a good candidate for "B" status. However,
the letter did not identify the gun by serial number. This problem
was rectified to some degree by obtaining notarized statements from
the auctioneer and intervening owner of the gun that the revolver
referred to in the letter was in fact the gun in question. All
told, I consider this gun to warrant a "B" rating as one owned by
Henry Cabot Lodge, but a "C" rating as a Roosevelt gun.

The third is another New Model Number Three, this one factory
engraved with target sites, chambered for the .38 service round. It
is accompanied by a notarized letter from a prominent dealer
stating that it was reportedly purchased from a descendant of
Roosevelt's valet, corroborated by a prominent collector. The icing
is a factory letter stating that the gun was shipped to Col.
Roosevelt in 1898. I give this gun an "A" on strength of the
factory records.

It might be interesting to consider the Theodore Roosevelt
Holland & Holland double rifle which recently brought the
record price at Butterfields. The exact and complete provenance of
this gun is known from when it left the factory, specially made for
TR for his African safari and commissioned by a group of prominent
individuals whose names appear inside the lid of the gun case.
There are photos of TR on safari with this exact gun and its
sequence of ownership is well known and documented up to present
date. An "A" gun if ever there was one.

Compare this to "the gun that killed Jesse James," which was
also recently sold at auction. For most of the 20th century, the
S&W has had the reputation of the gun used to do the wicked
deed. In fact it reportedly went back to the S&W factory for
engraving of the inscription on its side commemorating the event.
However, a look at the supporting documentation raises some
questions.

The story is that the gun was given by Bob Ford to the young son
of the Marshal who briefly jailed the Ford brothers after the
shooting, in appreciation for kindness to the imprisoned Fords by
the boy. The date of the earliest documentation appears to be a
1904 affidavit and newspaper article. Yes, this is along time ago,
but it is also 22 years after the incident in question!

The waters are muddied further by the fact that there is another
gun out there with the same claim - a Colt Single Action Army
mentioned by Ford in a newspaper article a month after the
shooting. It helps not a bit that an 1882 newspaper account of the
incident records the gun variously as a "Colt's .45" AND a "Smith
& Weston" (sic).

Where does that leave us? I'd give the gun a solid "B" as a Bob
Ford gun, and it certainly approaches "B by publication" status.
However, given the conflicting claim, it seems to exist in some
sort of schizophrenic "B/D" limbo as the gun that laid poor Jesse
in his grave.

Consider Wyatt Earp's S&W American as another example
showing that many of our greatest historic guns exist in the "B" to
"D" rating range. This is the beautifully engraved gun that was
used by the Franklin Mint as its model for the Wyatt Earp
reproduction which graces the walls of many Old West buffs around
the country. It currently resides in the outstanding Gene Autry Western
Meritage Museum in Los Angeles.

The museum reports, "It is, in fact, dangerous to assume that it
is a gun carried by Wyatt Earp. At one time, the gun was exhibited
in a small Tombstone museum with pearl grips and the name of John
Clum. Those grips have disappeared and new looking walnut grips
have taken their place. A number of writers have questioned this
gun, others have endorsed." Give the gun an "A" as a great Western
gun, and a "C-/D+" as Earp's.

This might be a good point to consider the reports of incredible
time-travel guns. For many years, a Colt SAA has been prominently
displayed in a small midwestern museum as the gun given to a local
doctor by outlaw Bob Dalton in payment for medical services.
Perhaps its most intriguing characteristic is the fact that its
serial number shows it was manufactured 11 years after old Bob met
his final reward.

Self-testifying guns are always intriguing, but must be
approached with caution when considering likelihood of
authenticity. This is illustrated by an engraved pair of S&W
.44 Double Action First Models which surfaced in different parts of
the country, each with a semi-famous Western name engraved on the
backstrap - "Billy Dixon" on one and "Allen Parmer, Texas" on the
other.

Either gun by itself might rate a "C" as a self-testifying gun.
However, taken together, some questions arise. The engraving is
rather crude, but an identical pattern is used on each. In each
case it is difficult to guess the age of the engraving.

While it is certainly possible that the same frontier engraver
did both guns, the fact remains that the .44 DA is a relatively
inexpensive old west six shooter which might have value enhanced
considerably by fraudulent engraving & attribution.

In historical attribution, skepticism must rule, and the
coincidence raises enough questions to put the guns in "D" status
unless further information can be developed.

Which brings us to the subject of "discovered" guns - a gun
whose history is not known, but is developed by a researcher. And
here is where a potential buyer must proceed with utmost
caution.

There is a gun in circulation which has been attributed to a
certain very notorious Old West outlaw. The owner discovered the
attribution by examining an old photo which may or may not have
been the individual in question, and deciding the grainy blob
sticking out of the holster in the photo was the self-same gun he
happened to have. By proclaiming this association long enough, the
gun began to have a life of its own, and garnered quite a bit of
press. Without additional documentation, however, it remains a "D"
gun.

And, it is no doubt for sale to the first reasonable offer in
the mid-five figures …

FACTORY LETTERS

"Factory letter" has come to be a generic term meaning a letter
from a recognized authority based on a search of the gun's
manufacturer's original records as to the disposition of a gun from
the factory. It is one of the most powerful tools available to you
in researching the authenticity of a gun's historical
attribution.

Under optimal circumstances, it will show the purchaser of the
gun from the factory (usually a distributor, sometimes an
individual), the date it was shipped, the configuration of the gun
(finish, barrel length, caliber, etc), and any special features.
Sometimes, incomplete factory documents mean some of these elements
will be missing.

Any gun that has value added for history should have a factory
letter if available. At a minimum, the factory letter should not
show information inconsistent with the claimed history. It's
helpful if the disposition is consistent with the historical claim
(i.e., gun in same configuration, shipped to same geographical area
at plausible date, etc.) Under the best of circumstances, it may
confirm shipment to the individual claimed.

Generally speaking, the more information you provide in your
request, the more likely the researchers can find something
interesting if there is something to be found. At a minimum,
include positive identification of the mode, serial number,
caliber, and any special features.

Remember, like guns, documentation can be faked! Most factory
letter sources will write a fresh letter on a gun that has already
been lettered for a reduced fee in order to confirm the information
in the previous letter. Also, bear in mind that it is not unknown
for serial numbers to be altered on guns to correspond to an
historically attributed gun.